First and foremost I would like to thank Russell for his time with me today. I know he's worn out from all the interviewing and the repetition of answering the same questions over and over. He is a very cool individual like many have said here in this forum.
Unfortunately I was not able to get to the area where he was at till late in the day (LONG STORY). I probably won't be able to answer very many questions but I will try to. I think Russell is probably the better person to ask when it comes to individual questions.
What I will do is try to give you an idea of what I thought about it and some of the questions I asked Russell. Remember.. I'm an ONLINE ONLY person. I don't know anything about franchise or RTTS.
Also I did take about 5 short video clips. This was when Russell was on break perhaps. When Russell came back I immediately introduced myself and he took about 30 minutes too show me the new things that have been implemented. So we threw a lot of balls down the middle and walk players intentionally so we could create double play scenarios and try to see all the new animations and such. Then we started up a real game between the Braves and Dodgers @ Dodger Stadium. Russell - Dodgers, Me - Braves (tried to match up the team he chose)
I will PM Russell FIRST to see if its allowed before I put the videos on YouTube. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of action in the clips I got but a lot of you guys have good attention to detail so maybe you'll see something new.
GRAPHICS
I couldn't quite put my finger on it at first but the graphics jumped out at me immediately. I didn't know what was so different. Maybe its because I play online and the graphics suffer. But I can conclude that the lighting has improved greatly. The daylight transition looks nice too (Russell went thru each inning to show the transitions including the lights being turned on at the park).
The bats do indeed look much nicer than last years iteration. Saw the games played in Philadelphia, Minnesota, St. Louis, LAD. He mentioned that fireworks were added this year and I saw them in St. Louis during a night game when a player hit a homerun (Funny thing here: We were playing in MIN when a hometown player hit a homerun and the fireworks didn't go off. Russell jotted this down/made note of this error and pointed out you don't know because no one had played the game yet in that park!)
ANIMATIONS
This part of the game got a lot of love. There are a lot of new throwing animations. Saw a lot of new different throws from the OF. This makes the game even more realistic of course. I saw other animation too like popping the mitt from a 1st baseman or the pumping of the first from a pitcher (seemed different from last year). There are all new wall climbs but we didn't see any. Pujols did his ritual after hitting a HR 428ft to dead center (actually we didn't see it but Russell said it would be there). The fireworks were nice addition after hometeam HR (for some reason I thought they were there last year).
We also saw a double play ball up the middle where the runner tries to take out the 2nd baseman. When the 2nd baseman threw the ball he lost velocity on his throw AND he almost did a handstand after he released the ball!!! Being able to break up double plays is a much WELCOMED addition!
I think Russell said their were like 15 added animations for when throwing at a batter. I saw at least 3 new ones. The best one that I had seen so far was the one behind the batter. There was also another where the batter would turn in his tricep (facing pitcher) to avoid being hit.
BALL PHYSICS
Much Improved. When balls are hit down the line they don't just stop and wait to be picked up by the OF it will actually roll around in the corner. Ball collision detection is added. I saw balls get kicked around, ball hitting shin gaurd of the catcher and roll away. We shouldn't see the issue last year of balls going thru the pitcher or balls going completely thru a player's chest in the OF. There are choppers and dribblers. Seen a 1st baseman get eaten up by a chopper that rolled up his arm and on into RF. Flight of the ball looks more realistic as well.
GAMEPLAY
Well as I've said I'm an ONLINE ONLY guy. Much to my suprise I was slow getting the bat off my shoulders. Offline is much faster it seems as I was late on almost everything. It took me a few innings to adjust but still felt that the game was so fast I couldn't watch the flight of the ball like I do with online.
Now Russell and I play for real! He chose the Dodgers (Billingsly) and I chose a team that was ranked next to his, the Braves (Lowe). Through 5 innings Russell had a 1-0 lead. I think hits were even around 4 or 5 a piece. I believe Furcal was at the plate and I hit him in the foot and the game locked up (I'm sure he jotted this down too!). Unfortunately then I had to go. My offline game sucks when it comes to hitting.
The pitching meter was tweaked a little. I got lost somewhat about what he was telling me but I think this is what he meant. When pitching if you hit the meter then your more likely to hit your spot or very close to your spot. However on the flipside if you miss then you can miss badly. So anotherwords, there should be less complaints about people saying they can't hit their spots if they hit their meter (however pitcher confidence, etc still has effects on outcome.
Three new pickoff moves. Very sweet. Tap the 'O' button and the pitcher will throw a weak toss over to 1B. Hold the 'O' button and the pitcher will make a strong pickoff throw. Double-tap the 'O' button and the pitcher will give you a deceptive pickoff move (think Petitte here).
Maybe the best thing I saw improved was the throws to homeplate not being way offline all the time. Now it seems when they are offline they catcher for the most part just had to stretch to reach it then move his body to the other side to apply the tag. This is attribute based so I'm sure someone with a more erratic or weaker arm would make the catcher move away from the plate.
AUDIO
What sound. Too damn noisy @ CES! A lot of commentary was still not in the game.
OPTIONS
You can actually SCHEDULE a pitcher to be warmed up after a certain inning. This is real nice! You can also view your opponents bullpen from the start menu. Also when you are in the bullpen you can see the next 3 batters that are up on the opposing team!
CAMERA / PRESENTATION
There are no cutscenes. Everything is in real time. Nice! It's hard to explain. Its just like on television when the camera switches to another part of the field. The broadcast camera will take some getting used to when fielding. I only tried it for a little bit but I can imagine that when getting grounders it could be tough to judge at times. Neither one of us had any problems for a couple innings so maybe it'll all be good. I think I still prefer the default camera. Not sure would need much more time with this to be sure.
ONLINE
I made my case with how hard it was to get the MIC setup online with people because of the button mapping. He told me to PM him to remind him and he was going to talk with Jason about this. I wouldn't think it would be too hard to re-map the button but I'm no programmer! For us online gamers, let's pray that they can get this in before pressing!
Can't change camera view. They tried to get it in this year. Maybe next year.
That's all this old man can remember for now! I hope you guys enjoy the read. I hope I can get the videos upped to YouTube (pending Russel's approval). If not we should be seeing lots of gameplay footage from gametrailers.com soon.
VIDEOS
Video #1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwCRJDoQkbs
Video #2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIcvC85nYxk
Video #3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwiuHk80T9c
Video #4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKL-O808TZM
Again I apologize for the poor quality due to me using the zoom. I don't own this recorder and didn't know the quality would suffer that bad.
Unfortunately I was not able to get to the area where he was at till late in the day (LONG STORY). I probably won't be able to answer very many questions but I will try to. I think Russell is probably the better person to ask when it comes to individual questions.
What I will do is try to give you an idea of what I thought about it and some of the questions I asked Russell. Remember.. I'm an ONLINE ONLY person. I don't know anything about franchise or RTTS.
Also I did take about 5 short video clips. This was when Russell was on break perhaps. When Russell came back I immediately introduced myself and he took about 30 minutes too show me the new things that have been implemented. So we threw a lot of balls down the middle and walk players intentionally so we could create double play scenarios and try to see all the new animations and such. Then we started up a real game between the Braves and Dodgers @ Dodger Stadium. Russell - Dodgers, Me - Braves (tried to match up the team he chose)
I will PM Russell FIRST to see if its allowed before I put the videos on YouTube. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of action in the clips I got but a lot of you guys have good attention to detail so maybe you'll see something new.
GRAPHICS
I couldn't quite put my finger on it at first but the graphics jumped out at me immediately. I didn't know what was so different. Maybe its because I play online and the graphics suffer. But I can conclude that the lighting has improved greatly. The daylight transition looks nice too (Russell went thru each inning to show the transitions including the lights being turned on at the park).
The bats do indeed look much nicer than last years iteration. Saw the games played in Philadelphia, Minnesota, St. Louis, LAD. He mentioned that fireworks were added this year and I saw them in St. Louis during a night game when a player hit a homerun (Funny thing here: We were playing in MIN when a hometown player hit a homerun and the fireworks didn't go off. Russell jotted this down/made note of this error and pointed out you don't know because no one had played the game yet in that park!)
ANIMATIONS
This part of the game got a lot of love. There are a lot of new throwing animations. Saw a lot of new different throws from the OF. This makes the game even more realistic of course. I saw other animation too like popping the mitt from a 1st baseman or the pumping of the first from a pitcher (seemed different from last year). There are all new wall climbs but we didn't see any. Pujols did his ritual after hitting a HR 428ft to dead center (actually we didn't see it but Russell said it would be there). The fireworks were nice addition after hometeam HR (for some reason I thought they were there last year).
We also saw a double play ball up the middle where the runner tries to take out the 2nd baseman. When the 2nd baseman threw the ball he lost velocity on his throw AND he almost did a handstand after he released the ball!!! Being able to break up double plays is a much WELCOMED addition!
I think Russell said their were like 15 added animations for when throwing at a batter. I saw at least 3 new ones. The best one that I had seen so far was the one behind the batter. There was also another where the batter would turn in his tricep (facing pitcher) to avoid being hit.
BALL PHYSICS
Much Improved. When balls are hit down the line they don't just stop and wait to be picked up by the OF it will actually roll around in the corner. Ball collision detection is added. I saw balls get kicked around, ball hitting shin gaurd of the catcher and roll away. We shouldn't see the issue last year of balls going thru the pitcher or balls going completely thru a player's chest in the OF. There are choppers and dribblers. Seen a 1st baseman get eaten up by a chopper that rolled up his arm and on into RF. Flight of the ball looks more realistic as well.
GAMEPLAY
Well as I've said I'm an ONLINE ONLY guy. Much to my suprise I was slow getting the bat off my shoulders. Offline is much faster it seems as I was late on almost everything. It took me a few innings to adjust but still felt that the game was so fast I couldn't watch the flight of the ball like I do with online.
Now Russell and I play for real! He chose the Dodgers (Billingsly) and I chose a team that was ranked next to his, the Braves (Lowe). Through 5 innings Russell had a 1-0 lead. I think hits were even around 4 or 5 a piece. I believe Furcal was at the plate and I hit him in the foot and the game locked up (I'm sure he jotted this down too!). Unfortunately then I had to go. My offline game sucks when it comes to hitting.
The pitching meter was tweaked a little. I got lost somewhat about what he was telling me but I think this is what he meant. When pitching if you hit the meter then your more likely to hit your spot or very close to your spot. However on the flipside if you miss then you can miss badly. So anotherwords, there should be less complaints about people saying they can't hit their spots if they hit their meter (however pitcher confidence, etc still has effects on outcome.
Three new pickoff moves. Very sweet. Tap the 'O' button and the pitcher will throw a weak toss over to 1B. Hold the 'O' button and the pitcher will make a strong pickoff throw. Double-tap the 'O' button and the pitcher will give you a deceptive pickoff move (think Petitte here).
Maybe the best thing I saw improved was the throws to homeplate not being way offline all the time. Now it seems when they are offline they catcher for the most part just had to stretch to reach it then move his body to the other side to apply the tag. This is attribute based so I'm sure someone with a more erratic or weaker arm would make the catcher move away from the plate.
AUDIO
What sound. Too damn noisy @ CES! A lot of commentary was still not in the game.
OPTIONS
You can actually SCHEDULE a pitcher to be warmed up after a certain inning. This is real nice! You can also view your opponents bullpen from the start menu. Also when you are in the bullpen you can see the next 3 batters that are up on the opposing team!
CAMERA / PRESENTATION
There are no cutscenes. Everything is in real time. Nice! It's hard to explain. Its just like on television when the camera switches to another part of the field. The broadcast camera will take some getting used to when fielding. I only tried it for a little bit but I can imagine that when getting grounders it could be tough to judge at times. Neither one of us had any problems for a couple innings so maybe it'll all be good. I think I still prefer the default camera. Not sure would need much more time with this to be sure.
ONLINE
I made my case with how hard it was to get the MIC setup online with people because of the button mapping. He told me to PM him to remind him and he was going to talk with Jason about this. I wouldn't think it would be too hard to re-map the button but I'm no programmer! For us online gamers, let's pray that they can get this in before pressing!
Can't change camera view. They tried to get it in this year. Maybe next year.
That's all this old man can remember for now! I hope you guys enjoy the read. I hope I can get the videos upped to YouTube (pending Russel's approval). If not we should be seeing lots of gameplay footage from gametrailers.com soon.
VIDEOS
Video #1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwCRJDoQkbs
Video #2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIcvC85nYxk
Video #3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwiuHk80T9c
Video #4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKL-O808TZM
Again I apologize for the poor quality due to me using the zoom. I don't own this recorder and didn't know the quality would suffer that bad.
)
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